SPORTSLINE (07/12/98)

SPORTSLINE

by Andrij Kudla Wynnyckyj

SOCCER

Well, Ukraine didn't make it to the World Cup in France, but life goes on in other aspects of the world of "the beautiful game." Western European Football's gravitational fields continue to pull strongly at Andrii Shevchenko, the young star who made his country's prospects so brilliant in qualifying and electrified Europe during Kyiv Dynamo's run to the quarterfinals of the European Cup.

Italian club AC Milan offered $17 million for the forward last year and was spurned, then earlier this year upped the ante to $30 million, but in the end would not go over $25 million and dropped its pursuit. Italian club Parma has apparently offered $36 million.

Mr. Shevchenko, who has expressed a preference for staying with Kyiv Dynamo and head coach Valerii Lobanovskyi, has apparently been given a good report about Scotland's Glasgow Rangers by assistant coach Oleksii Mykhailychenko, who played for the Rangers for five years.

Kyiv Dynamo won Ukraine's seventh national championship, completing the 30-game season with 23 wins, three losses and four draws for 72 points, with a goals for/goals against margin of 70-15. The squad finished five points ahead of second-place Shakhtar Donetsk. The league's top three scorers were Kyiv Dynamo's Serhii Rebrov, 22 goals; Mr. Shevchenko, 19; and Oleksander Palanytsia of Karpaty Lviv, 17.

The league's footballer of the year was Mr. Shevchenko, and coach of the year was Mr. Lobanovskyi.

According to, you guessed it, The Andrii Shevchenko Home Page, the blonde-haired forward was born in the village of Dviikivschyna near Yakotyn in the Kyiv Oblast. He was spotted at age 9 by Dynamo Kyiv youth coach Oleksander Shpakov. Mr. Shevchenko's idols are the entire Dynamo team that won the European Cup in 1986; Brazilians Pélé, Zico and Romario; and Michel Platini of France (organizer of this year's World Cup). He is not married, but is "tired of women calling him at home," and adds, "Don't make an idol of me. I haven't achieved anything yet."

For more information, read http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~myckola/f-ua.html and http://www.netwave.net/members/jarmola/news.html.

(Croatia, which had knocked out Ukraine in the preliminary playoffs, earned a berth in the quarterfinals of the World Cup by beating Romania 1-0 on a controversial penalty kick. Croatia then went on to defeat the winner of Ukraine's group in the qualifying round, Germany, in yet another controversial game. The victory took Croatia into the semifinals.)

SWIMMING

Ukraine's men and women are continuing their competitive run in World Cup competition. Nine events have been held in Sydney, Hong Kong, Beijing, Rio de Janeiro, Sheffield (England), Malmo (Sweden), Gelsenkirchen (Germany), Imperia (Italy) and Paris.

Yana Klochkova leads the world in the individual medley with 87 points, while Svitlana Bondarenko is second in the standings in the 50-, 100- and 200-meter categories with 81 points, just behind Brigitte Becue of Belgium.

Denys Silantiev leads the world with in the 50-, 100- and 200-meter butterfly with 91 points, a staggering 14 points ahead of the nearest competitor, James Hickman of the U.K.

Ukrainian Canadian Joan Malar of Hamilton has decided to move to Calgary's National Sports Center to enhance her training for the Commonwealth Games in Kuala Lumpur in September and the Sydney Olympics in 2000. Ms. Malar was hailed as one of Canada's star athletes prior to the Atlanta Olympics in 1996, but failed to medal.

FIGURE SKATING

Former world and Olympic champion Oksana Baiul's saga continues to get darker, as on May 7 Reuters and other news agencies reported that she had checked into a rehabilitation center to treat an apparent addiction to alcohol. Ms. Baiul's publicist, Wendy Morris, would not reveal the location of the center to the media.

As of late June, it was reported that the skater will be taking the summer off from tours such as the Champions on Ice.

Ms. Baiul's agent, Michael Carlisle, has apparently established an eponymous business, known as Carlisle and Co., which means that the 20-year-old can no longer be reached via the William Morris agency.

In January of last year, Ms. Baiul was given a light fine and avoided jail time after a high-speed accident that left her with a minor scalp injury and under suspicion for driving while intoxicated and under-age drinking.

On June 19, at its biennial congress, the International Skating Union re-elected audience bête-noire Ottavio Cinquanta as president for another four-year term and adopted a new scoring system aimed at reducing confusion in the public caused by the way judges assign scores.

The "One by One" system will allegedly reduce the occurrence of bizarre phenomena in which the order of skaters produces strange and radical changes in the ranking of skaters. In an example provided by Reuters, "at the 1994 European championships ... Russian ice dancers Maia Usova and Alexander Zhulin led Britons Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean with one couple, Oksana Grishuk and Evgeny Platov, to skate. When they finished, the order switched with the Britons first, Grishuk and Platov second, and Usova and Zhulin third."

At the 1997 Europeans, Ukraine's Viacheslav Zahorodniuk mysteriously appeared to drop from second place to third and Philippe Candeloro rose from third to second behind Russia's Aleksei Urmanov after the final competitor, Andrejs Vlascenko (who finished sixth), had skated.

For those with extra time on their hands and/or interest in figure skating's Byzantiniana, a comprehensive explanation of the "ordinals system" that produces the confusion, accompanied by tirades against the recently adopted "One by One" system, is provided on the Internet by one Sandra Loosemore at http://frog.simplenet.com/skateweb/obo/.

The ISU congress also decided to allow judges to use instant replay. More controversy seems assured.

CYCLING

On May 19 Serhii Honchar of the Tollo Alexia team became the first Ukrainian to don the Giro D'Italia's "maglia rosa" (pink jersey) given to the race leader, taking it away from Alex Zulle of Switzerland after the 196-kilometer third stage between Rapallo and Forte di Marmi. He then managed to keep the leader's jersey for the fourth stage by one second, widened his lead to three seconds after the next, but relinquished the top spot after the sixth stage, when Italy's Michele Bartoli took over.

Mr. Honchar then fell out of the top 20, stayed afloat by finishing 15th in the crash-filled stage to San Marino, but then reasserted himself in the 15th stage time trials with a second-place finish, catapulting himself back up to eighth spot overall.

Another strong time trial in the 21st stage assured him of a top spot. He averaged 51.128 kilometers per hour "in a huge gear" (as a VeloNews reporter put it), winning the 34-kilometer stage in a time of 39 minutes, 54 seconds.

Meanwhile, compatriot Volodymyr Duma of the Scrigno Gaerne team climbed into the limelight with some spirited duelling with Tollo's Alessandro Baronti during the 10th stage.

Serhii Uchakov struggled and was eliminated from the Giro after failing to meet the time limit following the 12th stage.

Mr. Honchar, 27, of Rivne, first grabbed world attention when he won a time trial in Cavalese at last year's Giro d'Italia, and then took the silver medal at the world time trial championships in San Sebastian, Spain.

In the end, which came after 22 stages on June 7, Mr. Honchar finished 10th, 25 minutes and 58 seconds behind winner Marco "King of the Mountains" Pantani of Italy.

Mr. Duma distinguished himself in the Tour of Switzerland (June 16-25), winning the sixth stage with a mind-exploding sprint in the final climb of the day on June 22. He finished the 167.4-kilometer distance between the towns of Haag and Morschach in three hours, 54 minutes and two seconds, ahead of Swiss Rolf Huser.

Mr. Duma also finished second in the ninth and final stage, but this put him no higher than 26th overall, 25 minutes, 15 seconds behind winner Italian Stefan Garzelli of the Mercatone Uno-Bianchi team.

To follow such matters, visit the excellent VeloNews site at: http://www.greatoutdoors.com/velonews/race/road/1998.

GYMNASTICS

Intrigue reigns in this sport as a feud between two of Ukraine's gymnastics federations almost caused the reigning Olympic champion in rhythmic gymnastics, Kateryna Serebrianska, to be banned from this year's Grand Prix series of tournaments, according to the Eastern Economist. The Kyiv-based federation headed by Iryna Deriuhina tried to disqualify the Symferopol-based athlete for "lateness in handing in her application." Ms. Serebrianska's coach said she would file a slander suit against Ms. Deriuhina.

The move to ban Ms. Serebrianska apparently failed, because she has since won the individual competition at the International Rhythmic Gymnastics Championship in France on May 15-17.

Ukraine's team, with Ms. Serebrianska, Olena Vitrychenko and Tetiana Popova have scored overall victories at several meets, including the European Rhythmic Gymnastics Championships held May 28-31 in Porto-Matosinhos, Portugal.

In straight gymnastics also, Ukraine has faired respectably. At the European Championships in St. Petersburg, the country finished third behind Romania and Russia. Atlanta Olympic Champion Lilia Podkopayeva was not on this team, and rumors began to circulate that she was about to retire, but in an interview in the Fakty newspaper published on May 20, she put such speculation to rest.

Ms. Podkopayeva said she recently underwent a leg operation, is recovering and has set her sights on Sydney. Asked to express a preference for the countries she has visited, the gymnast said: "Canada and Australia. These countries have very strong and respected Ukrainian diasporas. I have very warm memories of Australia, where I got my first medal at the World Championships. But I will never leave Ukraine."